Sunday, December 14, 2008

Vancouver Police Crash in Real Life during Filming of Halle Berry Movie

A cop in an unmarked vehicle was doing a U-turn at roughly 7:30 this evening in the middle of the 100 block Hastings St., and was struck by the car behind. That's what Marie, a young aboriginal woman with long dark hair walking along Hastings St., said.

"I saw the whole thing," Marie remarked. "It was the cop's fault."

There were lots of people on the sidewalk, some coming and going outside Insite, the supervised drug fixing site and apres fix cafe. One guy gazing at the crash site joked, "It's hard to know what's part of the movie." I didn't see filming close to the crash but police had Hastings St. blocked off from Main St. to Carroll. I don't know if it was blocked off at the time of the crash. When I walked up Hastings again a little after 10 p.m., filming with Halle Berry was going on at Columbia and Hastings using sixties era cars.

The photographer who passed the photos along to us reports that when she was taking photographs, a young, tall, white male cop in a yellow jacket strutted over to her and said, "Technically I could seize your camera as evidence." The photographer thought he was trying to tell her in a coded way to stop taking photographs. "I have a Charter right to take photographs", she responded politely. He repeated, "I just want you to know that technically I could seize your camera as evidence." Then she held up her camera to take a photo which would include him. See how fast he turned around.

Standing on the sidewalk later, she said to a friend, "I thought he was threatening me." Her friend responded, "He was."

The situation was not as confrontational as it may have come across in the article. This cop was actually better than other VPD officers who just tell photographers point blank that they can't take photos. After speaking to the photographer, this cop let it go; more photos were taken.

Not long ago, Pivot told the media that police trying to prevent people from taking photographs is an ongoing problem. If photographers are not interfering with the ability of police to do their job, the two should be able to work alongside one another.

That clarification is closer to Dale Carnegie than to Carnegie Centre. Thanks for making that plainer.

As an aside, your blog is becoming more well-known across the city, so it would be a shame to lose your camera or have your photographer lose his due to pointless assertiveness. I had no idea your blog had readers in such far-flung places as I recently found out it does. Good for you. Deserved, too. Nice work. Keep it up if only for the sake of your increasing readership.

I remember touring Insite during it's official opening; there was one room where you fix and another with a coffee bar where you relax after you fix.

The other day I talked to a Downtown Eastsider who told me he had recently gone into Insite with a friend who fixes there. I asked him if coffee was still provided. He said it was, that you could have coffee, tea, or juice.

Thanks for leaving a comment the other day mentioning that Judy Rogers had been fired.